As my wife and I frantically attempted to stanch the flow of water that spread over our laundry room with towels and a wheezing Shop Vac, that old, familiar phrase about "the joys of home ownership" echoed in my head.

"I want a fresco," Michel's mother Mireille announced one autumn afternoon. She had just emerged from a three-day migraine, and her face was flushed, her eyes burning and glittery, her little hands pale as candles.

Wisconsin People & Ideas is the Academy's quarterly magazine of contemporary Wisconsin thought and culture.